New & Improved

If you want products that customers get passionate about and (here’s the key) have a willingness to pay for – even at a premium, the OutFirst! method will get you there. Yes, we said passionate. We believe that unless the product ignites an emotional response in a customer, it will remain in inventory. Think that we can’t ignite customer passion in your category? Why that sounds like a challenge that we will gladly accept.

The OutFirst! process is designed to help you create the big ideas for new–to–market products that make sense and that consumers really want.

New & Improved’s breakthrough process for name and product concept ideation is specifically designed to get creative thinking out of your team, your internal stakeholders, as well as outsiders who can provide fresh insight.

Many people say that their internal people are incapable of creating exciting, fresh innovative ideas. But that’s simply not true. It is possible to liberate their creativity. But you’ll need more than just a simple brainstorming session. We spend time working with the team to help them think outside the...um...snowglobe so that they can leverage their knowledge to find something new, wild and revenue generating. Additionally, we develop the “leave behind” skills that allow your teams to negotiate the product development pipeline more wisely and effectively. Read: Quicker to market.

The OutFirst! process combines an exciting blend of innovative inspiration with process guidance to mix with your wisdom to create exciting first–in–category new concepts, and often new categories entirely. Consider it a revolutionized early stage of new product development.

By engaging in the OutFirst! process you’ll cut through the fuzzy front end of concept development and provide your teams with what they need to take their innovations forward. From decades of facilitating product ideation sessions, we’ve learned the simple truth that the quality of a new product or service idea is not the final determinant of whether it survives the development process and makes it to market. Those in the industry know that a product’s success within the development portfolio has much to do with the support the product concept receives. That’s why we don’t stop with just generating innovative solutions. Uniquely, we work with the group to strengthen the skills necessary to ensure that the concepts don’t die once people get back to the workplace. Call it organizational politics innovation, and you wouldn’t be far off.

If you want to brainstorm the same old stuff, we’re not interested. But if you want to generate innovative concepts that light your customers’ hair on fire (speaking metaphorically of course), and then have those ideas become refined and improved through the concept funnel, then you’re ready to go Out?First!.

Key Benefits

OutFirst! goes beyond traditional facilitator–led brainstorming sessions. The infusion of creative talent and outside perspective pumps new life into your NPD processes. Some of the benefits of OutFirst! include:

• Speed: We take you from zero to breakthrough visual prototypes in under a week
• Tangible: You walk away with lots of well–organized ideas, reports, renderings, and prototypes
• Needs based: We start with cultural analysts in our market review to assure that ideas are on–target and then shape them against customer and stakeholder requirements
• Breakthrough: Our outside perspective allows us to make connections that may have otherwise gone unnoticed
• Radical: We provide new–to–the–world business concepts and “discontinuous innovations” when appropriate
• Impact: We train your participants to become their own innovation champions within your organization